I Don't Want The World To See Me
by Sable Supernova
Summary: Severus Snape made a mistake, once, as a boy, and he will never atone. OneShot. For QLFC.


Written for QLFC, for the Wigtown Wanderers, for the following line:

"And I don't want the world to see me." - Iris, Goo Goo Dolls.

* * *

 **I Don't Want The World To See Me**

I made a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes right? No big deal, move on, the world's no worse for it. That's how it usually goes, isn't it? But my mistake will make the history books. My mistake changed the course of the world. I paid dearly for it, but there are others… others lost everything because of me.

Draw the curtains around me; shut out the sun. Turn your back on me. I don't deserve your pity. I don't want the world to see me, not anymore, not like this.

Words come quickly, words come cheap. You just push some air out of your lungs through your vocal chords and you've spoken. My mistake was a word. Mudblood. Just one little word, said so often by so many people, fell like a rolled dice into the chasm that opened up between us. It set an old bridge alight and helped build the foundations of new ones, ones I never wanted.

And it was my choice. It was a reaction, self-defence, protection – but it was mine.

If I hadn't said that word, she'd still be trying to save me. It could have worked, too. I only wanted acceptance.

If I hadn't said that word, there'd still be something about me worth saving.

But I did.

I, and I alone, solidified her hatred of me, and all I had chosen to stand for.

If I hadn't have said that word, I'd have worshiped her like an idol at the altar of my hope. But I chose a false god, and I served him loyally.

Too loyally. I was as loyal as a Gryffindor without the courage.

I ran to him with the information I overheard as soon as I heard it.

I'd been trying to forget about her for a long time, and it had worked. Because I said that word, I tried to forget her existence; I blocked out every mention of her. I tried to forget her name, even, and in doing so, I didn't listen to her life as it was told around dark tables in derisive tones.

I conveyed the prophecy to my master as well as I remembered, dutifully, and found myself suddenly forced to remember her, the woman I had always loved, with a stark finality, with my lord's next word.

"Potters." He spoke with such venom that I knew what I had done.

I only had myself, and that word once spoken in a moment of anger, to blame.

Lily, I tried to save you. I tried, I tried with all the power I had. But I had no power. I'd given it all away, once, when I'd allowed him to mark my arm.

I dug my own grave, Lily, in the darkness, with my bare hands. I didn't know I was digging yours, too.

I don't want the world to see me anymore, Lily, because they don't see me as you once did. They don't see the truth, only the facts. Even if the world knew my whole story, Lily, my whole life, they would not understand. You did, once, didn't you? And I threw that away with a word.

What's worse is how wrapped up I got in that mistake, and your hatred. I forgot myself because of that word, and I killed you. I might as well have held that wand myself, spoke those words with feeling.

It wouldn't have made a difference.

I don't want pity.

I don't want fear.

I don't want reverence.

I want you.

I always wanted you. I needed you like the sun needs the wind to calm its passion and heat. I need you like the lily needs water for its life's energy.

And because of me, I can't have you.

There's a baby boy somewhere without a mother. There's a man in Azkaban with nothing left to lose. There's a truth I'll never speak. I am sorry.

Even if I spend my whole life trying to right the wrong I caused with that word, I will never atone. I know this. I'll still try. I'll try because I can see it all so clearly, now. It's the blessed curse of hindsight. It's what you would have done. I will not rest until all that you stood for and believed in is brought true. I know it's what you would have done, had you stood where I stand.

And when I die, I will not be a hero. I will be a man, alone and bitter, dying for you.

I'm no hero. I'm the catalyst. I'm the element that brought the flower and death together in a cataclysmic consummation, because I said something I shouldn't, once, as a boy.

And so I will continue to be the catalyst. I'll fight to bring the right circumstances together at the right time so that your boy, the one whose shoulders all hope rests on, does not meet the same fate you did.

I don't want the world to see me. I want you to see me, only you, from wherever you are now. I know you're gone, Lily, but you're still here, somewhere. I know it because you're still in my heart, and you're in his eyes, they say. You live on in him.

Mudblood. With that word, the one I've never uttered since, I set wheels in motion, brought fate and destiny together in the skies and wrote the future.

That is my past now.

I write my own future.

I write it for you.


End file.
